It was hard not to stare at Nomura. Whenever the troll opened her mouth, jagged rows of teeth appeared, and her fingers were long and sharp like claws. The way she fought off the Punk Sharks… It was so easy, like a game.
Most trolls in New Trollmarket were gigantic and far stronger than Joan. Every time she saw one of them, it reminded her how small and weak she was. Any one of the trolls here could squash her in less than a second, even Blinky, one of the smaller of the lot.
"Hey!" Nomura snapped her fingers in Joan's face. "Are you listening? Concentrate!"
The squiggly mish-mash of German words and phrases stared up at her from the book that lay open on Nomura's table. The contents might as well be differential physics they looked so foreign.
"I told you to concentrate!" Nomura hissed.
"I am!"
"Then what's your problem?!" Nomura's eyes flashed intense, unhappy green.
"This just doesn't make any sense!" Joan protested.
"It would if you'd listen," Nomura retorted. "Or am I wasting my time?"
"No!" Joan stood up. Her chair scraped the stone floor and sent a harsh ring through the keep.
"Then what did I just say?" Nomura crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.
"I… don't know…" Joan sank back into her chair as Nomura gave her an insulted huff. "I'm sorry, all right! But this is stupid! German? French? Down here? What's the point?"
"Well, if you aren't willing to work for it, there is no point," Nomura replied.
"Work for what?" Joan demanded. "We're underground! This is stupid! It's all stupid!"
Nomura leapt out of her chair, and Joan screamed as the troll grabbed her from across the table. "Listen, precious. I don't have to do this. I don't even have to let you stay here. If you want to go back to your dear mother that's fine with me!" The troll let go of her and pointed to the keep entrance. "Just go!"
Tears blurred Joan's vision.
"And if you think blubbering will help you, you're wrong," Nomura hissed.
"You're not even giving me a choice," Joan sniffed. "As if you could possibly know how it is! I didn't ask to be born into that. I just was! You walk down the street, and everyone looks down on you, calls you awful things just to make sure you know you don't belong. And it isn't because of anything you did. It's just… because of what you are." She swallowed the anger that knotted in her throat.
Nomura took a fistful of Joan's blouse and stood. "You sure talk big, precious," she said as Joan's feet hung three inches above the floor. "But you're letting this go to your head. You talk as if you know everything, but you're so ignorant. You can make your own destiny, but you ignore that. Why?" Nomura's eyes searched Joan's. "It's because you're ungrateful."
Joan held her breath as she dangled, and when Nomura set her down, she collapsed and fought off her tears.
The troll shut the book with a loud thump and walked away.
"Where are you going?" Joan said.
"I believe we're done here," Nomura said. "If you won't fight for yourself, there's no point."
"Well, fine! See if I care!" Joan called after her, but Nomura left without saying another word.
Loneliness filled the empty keep, and Joan shivered in the cool air. What now? She held her face in her hands. "Is this my fault? Why does everything have to be so confusing?"
Edited by Dtill359